You know an adapted screenplay is bad when its very best parts are those where the narrator is quoting directly from the text. Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a funny, witty sci-fi book that is more a satire of modern culture than it is about outer space. To the extent that A Hitchhiker's Guide incorporates the original text, it is just as funny and insightful. The problem is, it really doesn’t incorporate that much.

Unless we’re talking about incorporation of primary characters and basic storylines. The rough outline of the movie is essentially the same as its source. Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) is an ordinary Englishman who, one day, discovers his friend Ford (Mos Def) is an Alien and that other Aliens are blowing up the earth to pave way for an intergalactic space route. The two hitch a ride on a spaceship, eventually joining Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell) and Trillion (Zooey Daschanel) in the search for the question to the answer of the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.

The film does everything wrong that an adapted screenplay can do. The wit is downplayed and the action is upped. Subtle quirkiness is exchanged for slapstick and visual oddities. Worst of all, the film plays up and centers on a crappy romantic storyline between two characters from whom we have no reason to want to be together except that they’re the main characters.

Sam Rockwell is great at playing eccentric characters, but Zaphod Beeblebrox is played so outrageously he quickly becomes annoying, and while Bill Nighy is perfectly cast as Slartibartfast, a lot more could have been made of the character’s eccentricities – Nighy felt too bland.

The film manages, largely, because of its visual depiction of Adams’ world – colorful and eventful, as it should be. Stephen Fry’s narration brings the text back into the story and provides for much of the film’s humor. The screenplay won’t get you to believe this is a good movie, but oddly enough, it might make you want to read the book – which is just about the best thing the film has going for it.

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